Election 2016

Republicans woo “sagebrush rebels” in Nevada
David Stix wants the government’s hands off his stubble. But he is not fretting over facial hair. The Nevada rancher is bothered about tufts of grass — known to cattlemen as stubble and to his cows as food — which he says heavy-handed bureaucrats are over-regulating.

Newt Gingrich to Fox News: You created Trump
Via Andrew Kirell, a perfect complement to my last post about the feeble Super PAC effort against Trump. It’s not just a matter of him having faced shockingly few outside ads given his standing in the race.

Report: Bush PAC Donors Angry as Mike Murphy Walks Away with $14M After Blowing $100M
Mirroring the donor-backlash against Karl Rove after his American Crossroad/Crossroads GPS super PACs raised upwards of $300 million and produced a dismal 2012 success rate, Mike Murphy, the man in charge of the Jeb Bush Right to Rise USA super PAC is now in the crosshairs. Right to Rise’s dismal results became painfully obvious when Bush dropped out of the race Saturday night after only three primary contests.

How Marco Rubio Is Guaranteeing Donald Trump Wins the Nomination
Let me begin this by reiterating that I think we are perhaps past the point of avoiding a Donald Trump nomination absent some singular act of Divine Grace. But, if it is possible to stop Donald Trump, the way that happens is by Rubio getting out of the race, now, and campaigning hard for Cruz.

Know Who Doesn’t Believe Trump is Inevitable? The Voters
The media right now is pushing the narrative that Trump is inevitable, the contest is over, he has won. They have obvious reasons for doing this – they want to convince Republican voters that the contest is over so they can enjoy the ratings that come from the public flogging of a lunatic for several months.

Scared Donald Trump to Hide Behind Chris Christie’s Skirt
This is how desperate Donald Trump is to change the news cycle. Trump has had Christie’s endorsement in his back pocket the whole time. He could have released this whenever he wanted to. He did it today to try to divert attention from the fact that he got his face stomped in by Rubio in last night’s debate, and that the face stomping is still continuing today. Clearly, he is desperate to remind people that Christie once got the better of Rubio in a debate.

Against Too-Little-Too-Late–ism
I want to push back a little against the cynicism and defeatism that I’m seeing this morning in some quarters of the Right. As far as I can tell, it is broadly accepted that Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz did what they had to do at last night’s debate, and, moreover, that Trump was rattled by their having done so. And yet, seemingly everywhere, conservatives are whining that it was probably “too little too late.”

Did Obama blackmail Christie to endorse Trump
I spoke with a prominent person in Washington just now—a name you’d recognize—who told me he thinks the Obama administration is behind this, with a threat to Christie that he’d be prosecuted for “Bridgegate” unless he endorsed Trump. Maybe so, but I can also see that Christie maybe sees a chance for him to be on the ticket with Trump: the Fathead and Fatso ticket.

“The Chinese Government Almost Blew It”
In Thursday night’s debate, Donald Trump put in a word for Saddam Hussein and Moammar Qaddafi, in a way. He said that, if those two were still in power, “instead of having terrorism all over the place, we’d be — at least they killed terrorists, all right?”

What we don’t know about Super Tuesday
It’s commonplace to declare Donald Trump the front-runner in all or nearly all of the Super Tuesday states. But we don’t really know that. The polling from many of those states is scant, out of date, or nonexistent, making it impossible to say with any certainty who is leading.

Obama Scandals

HHS: Immigrants with HIV, STDs welcome
The administration has decided to let immigrants with three sexually transmitted diseases known for causing sores or lesions on genitalia to enter the United States, an expansion of a previous decision to let in those with HIV.

Gun Rights

Lexington Facing Semi-Automatic gun Confiscation
Lexington, Massachusetts has a special place in American history as this is the location where the first shot was fired of the Revolutionary War, and now a new revolution is on the cusp of breaking out, only this time it’s tyrannical in nature.

Obamacare

Government in Healthcare

Sweden Is Upgrading to Private Healthcare
When leftists fantasize about Northern Europe, the first thing they think of is the region’s enormous public spending and its overly generous welfare state. However, as with all dreams, the time is coming to wake up. Along with several other social services, Sweden’s iconic “free” healthcare system’s days are numbered.

Myth of “brain death” exposed in Michigan
“Brain death” sounds so scientific when uttered by a medical authority, an indication that the real life of a patient is over. But it is a judgment call with so little scientific basis that.

George Washington’s Anti-Slavery Legacy
As he fought to free Americans from foreign tyranny, George Washington also set a quieter example to his countrymen of what it means that “All men are created equal.”

Mark Kirk bails out on #NoHearingsNoVotes
I recently penned an article on the potential risks of the #NoHearingsNoVotes stance by the GOP and what it might cost the party, particularly in terms of tight Senate races this fall.

Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Dismisses Rick Perry Indictment
The state’s highest criminal court has dismissed the remaining indictment against former Gov. Rick Perry related to a 2013 veto threat, likely bringing an end to a legal saga that loomed over his final days in office and dogged his failed run for president.

Nevada Caucuses: Friends, Neighbors Debate
Friends and neighbors debated the Republican candidates’ pros and cons at the Nevada caucuses at Durango High School on Tuesday evening, with hundreds standing patiently in line to cast their votes and hear from representatives of the different campaigns.

#FreeStacy: Does @Twitter @Support Child-Porn Defender @AlisonRapp?
Irony much? @AlisonRapp is an advocate of perversion who hates #GamerGate. She is an enthusiastic promoter of Japanese anime videogames that have been criticized as fantasy fodder for pedophiles and, in fact, Ms. Rapp has denounced as “censorship” the criminalization of child pornography.

A White Hipster Apologized For Vandalizing A Restaurant With “F— You White Hipsters”
It’s been a bumpy week for the white Austin hipster. First they have to go claim their kin after one of them insisted that Austin was the true home of the breakfast taco—which was news to folks in San Antonio, Corpus, the Valley, and other points south. Now they have to acknowledge that the combination of self-loathing and a total lack of self-awareness in their makeup means that a white Austin hipster vandalized a business—owned by two people of color—with the words “F*ck You White Hipsters.”

Survey: Millennials Are Too Lazy to Eat Cereal
It seems millennials are waging a new generational war—and the enemy is Cap’n Crunch. The Washington Post reports the sale of breakfast cereals in the US is down nearly 30% over the past 15 years.

The Great Racial Hoax of Albany
The Great Hoax of Albany started out straightforwardly enough: a dozen violent and racist white students harassed, threatened, tossed N-bombs and attacked three black coeds — hurting them really, really, really badly.

Does Transit Save Energy?
This is one of those questions that seems like a no-brainer — a bunch of people are sharing a ride, so they must be saving energy. When asked this question, we all think of a full bus or train of people vs. the number of cars that would have carried the same people.

Fox News Is Corrupt and Unethical
It was never a good idea for conservatives to put all their media eggs in Rupert Murdoch’s basket, and this story about Marco Rubio’s role in the 2013 “Gang of Eight” deal explains why

Economy & Taxes

First U.S. Factory OK’d For Cuba
When President Obama travels to Cuba next month — the first visit by a sitting U.S. president in nearly 90 years — it will mark a historic step on the path to normalizing relations with the island nation.

Venezuela puts off default by shipping tons of gold to Switzerland
Venezuela has been hit hard by the drop in global oil prices, making it difficult for the nation–which imports nearly everything it needs–to provide basic necessities like food and medicine. But the country is making an effort to avoid defaulting on bond payments and dipping heavily into gold reserves to do so.

EU Parliament’s Out-in-Open Voter Fraud
If Britain does indeed vote to leave the European Union in June, it will be in part because the EU loves to lecture sovereign nations while its own institutions are rife with bad behavior

Opinion

RIP Twitter
I’m done with Twitter. If you follow me over there, I’ll leave the account open to post blog links back to here and book ads, but other than that I’m not going to use it for any sort of conversation.

In Safe Space, Everyone Can Hear You Scream
From my perch on the other side of the world, there doesn’t seem to have been much movement between New Hampshire and South Carolina. On the eve of the vote, it’s Trump holding a near Granite State-sized lead, Cruz and Rubio tussling for second place, Kasich and Bush for fourth, and Ben Carson fading into oblivion. I see Bernie has just pipped Hillary in a Fox News national poll and is closing in in Nevada, but her stiff, joyless it’s-my-turn campaign seems to be holding on in the Palmetto State.

The Hateful Lies of Feminism
Anita Sarkeesian (@FemFreq on Twitter) is a jargon-spewing pseudo-intellectual who made herself obnoxious by using feminist “gender theory” to critique videogames. This proved to be enormously lucrative for Ms. Sarkeesian, who became a heroine in the eyes of every left-wing ax-grinder who, like her, hates the idea of heterosexual white males enjoying themselves without being constantly lectured about what awful racist, sexist homophobes they are.

Taking offense is a kind of conspicuous consumption
Peter Tatchell is not everyone’s cup of tea. Actually, let’s drop this whole understated, litotical British thing: Peter Tatchell is a thundering nuisance. Self-righteous, hectoring and permanently outraged, the gay rights activist has agitated his way through life without ever having much in the way of a proper job. Since leaving Australia for Britain in 1971 to evade the draft, he has drifted from one political campaign to the next, shouting down the patriarchy, the church and Western capitalism in general.

Using @Twitter’s own risk factor analysis to force it to respect viewpoint diversity
As mentioned in an earlier post, many conservatives (including yours truly) are increasingly concerned by Twitter’s lack of respect for viewpoint diversity and silencing of center-right and right of center voices. Of course, as a private company, Twitter is free to engage in any sort of non-invidious discrimination it chooses. As consumers, however, we are free to fight back.

What @FemFreq Didn’t Say
In last night’s post about Anita Sarkeesian ( @FemFreq on Twitter), I neglected to point out this: Nowhere in her Monday blog post about “shadowbanning,” etc., does she say whether she is for or against the suppression of anti-feminist dissent on Twitter.

The #FreeStacy Protest Continues
Friends, I am profoundly grateful for all the support my friends have shown in the past few days. Go down the #FreeStacy hashtag on Twitter and RT as much as you can. Here’s the Lonely Conservative:

11 reasons this conservative would never, ever, ever vote for Trump
Though there’s still time to stop him, it’s now looking increasingly likely that Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee. Some conservatives, such as Erick Erickson and my colleague Tim Carney have outlined reasons why they could never vote for him, so I thought it would be worth spelling out why I couldn’t – even in a general election against Hillary Clinton.

The Damming of the Free Flow of Information
As some of you know by now, after an over eight year presence on Facebook with thousands of followers there alone, I have been declared as persona no grata by the powers that be.

University Students Are Helpless Infants
Today I was babysitting my two young grandsons. When they arrived, I had the living room TV tuned to Turner Classic Movies (TCM) which was showing an old Jimmy Cagney gangster flick from the 1930s.

How Biden killed John Roberts’s nomination in 1992
In 1992, then-Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Joe Biden launched a preemptive attack on any nominee President George H.W. Bush named to the Supreme Court, warning that if Bush tapped someone, Biden’s committee “should seriously consider not scheduling confirmation hearings on the nomination … until after the political campaign season is over.”

Trump’s Totalitarian Instincts
I’ve long resisted the urge to compare Trump to Hitler because of the Internet axiom that if you bring the Nazis into an argument, you’ve lost.

If Trump Wins the Nomination, the GOP Better Hope for a Third Party Run
Right now, the scuttlebutt in the political media is all about whether conservative groups are making contingency plans to support a conservative third party candidate in the general. The story has been reported in Politico and numerous other outlets and I can tell you for a fact that the discussions are occurring and proceeding forward on a contingency basis.

Live by the Narrative
I find it bizarre — way beyond astonishing — that no one has done a study into how soaked in narrative our age is, well beyond any other age before us. And how much that narrative is fictional.

#NeverTrump
It was asked of me why I’m not giving full throated support for Cruz. As I alluded to in the replying comment, I have the benefit of some time to watch how things play out. Super Tuesday, plus a few weekend primaries prior to my state voting on the 15th.